Why the European Union won’t work ou
Legitimacy Crisis
By the term “Legitimacy Crisis”, first used by the German socialist Jürgen Habermas, we refer to the declining confidence from citizens towards the administrative functions, institutions, or leadership. This term was coined in 1973, even though it seems so actual that we could use it as well to refer to the on-going situation in the European Union. The EU does not have complete legitimacy over the citizens of the 27 member countries, since it only has a say for what concerns politics and economics. Additionally, the EU does not operate under majority rule (i.e. take the decision that has more than half the votes). As a consequence of this, one country can veto laws.
Keywords:
Migration — Euro — Solidarity — Democracy — Burdens
Introduction: What doesn’t work
Born as an economical union based on the Treaty of Rome in 1958, this alliance grew bigger and bigger, and in 1993, thanks to the new additional countries, it turned into the European Union. In order to enter it, there were some requirements to follow, such as have a free market, respect the human rights and the rule of law. The European Union as we all know it has been facing several problems in the last few years. Actually there are many critical aspects for the EU, such as the economical, the social and the political ones.
1.1 Migrant Crisis
It is well-known to everyone that Europe has been facing a consistent problem with migrants, refugee and asylum seekers, and so on. The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has expressed her opinion about this. In her speech held the last 23 of September, regarding the “New Pact of Migration of Asylum”, she said that we need responsability and solidarity between the member states, because “we all share the benefits, and we all share the burdens”. The journalist Dave Keating, based in Brussels, pointed out that the countries which refused to accept this new agreement about migrations, such as Holand and Poland, are up to pay to return refugees who have their asylum requested denied back to their home-country, or, since they don’t want to welcome refugees, they must contribute on other areas, as providing money to fund the so-called reception centres. A behaviour to avoid is the one assumed by the French populist National Rally party leader, Marine Le Pen, who launched a campaign against the new EU pact, stating that it would lead to the “suicide” of Europe. The Migrant Crisis helped the growth of the right-wing parties in Europe, such as the Populist Party in Austria, the National Front in France, the AFD in Germany and the United Kingtom Independence Party when the UK was still part of the EU. To avoid this “problem” there should be better border controls, which are ensured by the Frontex, the EU Border Agency which is unfortunately underfunded. This is why the European Union is promoting a shared solidarity among the member states, because all of us are involved in this situation.
1.2 Eurozone
Most of the countries in Europe (19 out of 27 member states of the European Union) use the Euro as their actual currency. This has its pros and cons. Lots of economically weak states have been helped thanks to the funds of richer countries: this is what happened in Greece during its crisis, whose funds came from Germany. Also, thanks to this, many states have been able to develop, grow and become stronger. A prime example is Sweden, which has lived its worst years in the 90s, but since its entrance in the European Union in 1995, it changed its educational system, improved its healthcare system, cut off a 25% of its bureaucracy and now it is a well-off country. It is also noticeable that there is a real difference between the North and the South countries. Even though every country has grown since its entrance in the EU, countries like Italy and Greece (which belong to the South) have grown of just about 15%, whereas other countries like Poland, Netherlands have had a huge growth
1.3 Democracy Deficit
This expression has been coined by David Marquand back in 1979, talking about the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the European Union. By this expression, we refer to the lack of communication. Democracy, among the institutions of the European Union, should be guaranteed by the European Parliament, which legislate along with the Council of EU. The fundamental part is that the members of the Parliament are directly elected by the citizens. The matter does not concern the institutions as much as the citizens themselves. In fact, the lack of communication, engagement and transparency in the already complex decision-making process tends to cause alienation, and damage democracy itself. A thing that emerges immediately is that there in no real correspondence between the demos and the Legislative power, since it is divided into the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament, which is the only organization to be elected, but still it is just a third and won’t affect the results. But, can we really talk about a European demos? There is a theory, known as the “no-demos thesis”, which has developed during the last 20 years. In one of his articulations, Dieter Grimm, a German lawyer, admitted that national democracies may be imperfect, but, brought up at the EU level, there are not even the prerequisites of democracy. In fact there are no European civil associations or movements, nor are there any European communication system or public media, something that we do expect since there is not a common language. As Grimm says, a society that wants to be a political unit requires a collective identity, not a homogenous ethnic community. We do not encounter such a collective identity, and therefore there is no European demos.
1.4 Solutions
David Held, in his book “Models of democracy” suggested a deliberative democracy as a possible solutions. This is a kind of government that requires both consensus and the majority rule, thanks to whom European citizens are brought to the core of deliberation process, and their vote are going to be taken into account more seriously. Is this the only solutions? Well no, since we have national parliaments which are the main interlocutor between us and the other member states, and we have to get use of them. What we need is a velvet revolution, not something that is going to overturn everything, but that is going to let our voices be heard.